# Continue **Source:** https://geo.sig.ai/brands/continue **Vertical:** Developer Tools **Subcategory:** AI Coding Tools **Tier:** Challenger **Website:** continue.dev **Last Updated:** 2026-04-15 ## Summary Open-source AI coding assistant for VS Code and JetBrains raised $5M seed from Heavybit and YC; supports any LLM including local models via Ollama; Continue Hub registry for sharing custom assistants differentiates it from proprietary coding tools. ## Company Overview Continue is an open-source AI coding assistant for VS Code and JetBrains IDEs, founded with the mission of making AI-assisted development customizable, transparent, and community-driven rather than locked into proprietary systems. The company raised a $5 million seed round from Heavybit and Y Combinator, backing that reflects the open-source-first developer tooling ecosystem's appetite for a coding assistant that developers can inspect, modify, and extend.\n\nContinue's core product provides AI code completion, chat, and editing capabilities within the IDE, with full support for connecting to any LLM — OpenAI, Anthropic, local models via Ollama, or custom endpoints. Its key differentiator is the Continue Hub, a registry for sharing and discovering custom AI assistants, system prompts, and tool configurations tailored to specific frameworks, languages, or company codebases. This community layer creates a network effect that proprietary tools cannot easily replicate. Continue v1.0 launched in February 2025 with a redesigned UX and expanded agent capabilities.\n\nContinue competes with GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and Codeium but targets a distinct segment: developers and teams who want control over their AI toolchain, prefer open-source software, or work in environments where data cannot leave the organization. The open-source model has driven significant organic adoption and GitHub star growth. In 2025–2026, the company has focused on the Hub ecosystem and enterprise features for teams deploying Continue with self-hosted or on-premises LLMs. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Continue? Open-source AI coding assistant for VS Code and JetBrains. Connects to any model with customizable context. ### How much has Continue raised? $5M seed from Heavybit and Y Combinator. ### What is the Continue Hub? Marketplace for building, customizing, and sharing AI code assistants across teams (v1.0, Feb 2025). ### What IDEs does Continue support? Continue is available as an extension for VS Code and JetBrains IDEs (IntelliJ, PyCharm, WebStorm, GoLand, etc.), covering the two most popular IDE families among professional developers and making it accessible to the broad developer community without requiring an IDE switch. ### Which LLMs can developers connect to Continue? Continue is model-agnostic and can connect to any LLM provider including Anthropic Claude, OpenAI GPT-4, Google Gemini, Mistral, local models via Ollama, and custom API endpoints. This flexibility allows developers to choose models based on cost, capability, or data privacy requirements. ### What does Continue's Hub feature do? Continue Hub is a community marketplace for sharing and discovering custom AI assistant configurations — preconfigured system prompts, tool sets, and model combinations optimized for specific development contexts like React development, Python data science, or Go backend engineering — enabling the community to share productivity optimizations. ### How does Continue differ from GitHub Copilot? Continue is open source with full transparency into how it works, supports any LLM rather than being locked to GitHub's model choices, and allows deep customization of the AI assistant behavior via configurable system prompts and tools. GitHub Copilot is a closed proprietary product with limited customization options. ### How is Continue funded and what is its business model? Continue raised a $5 million seed round from Heavybit and Y Combinator. The open-source extension is freely available, and Continue's commercial model is built around Continue Hub enterprise features, centralized configuration management for teams, and potentially hosting services for organizations that want managed AI assistant deployment. ## Tags b2b, developer-tools, platform, saas --- *Data from geo.sig.ai Brand Intelligence Database. Updated 2026-04-15.*